To Seduce a Sinner (33 page)

Alistair met the woman’s blue eyes. “What did you say your name was?”

She blushed as prettily as the sun rising in spring on the heath. “I didn’t. My name is Helen Halifax.
Mrs.
Halifax. We are getting quite wet out here, you know.”

A corner of his mouth kicked up at the starch in her tone. Not a mental deficient after all. “Well, then, you and your children had better come in, Mrs. Halifax.”

THE TINY SMILE
curving one side of Sir Alistair’s lips startled Helen. It drew attention to a mouth wide and firm, supple and masculine. The smile revealed him as human. Not the gargoyle she’d been thinking him, but a man.

It was gone at once, of course, that smile. He caught her looking at him, and his expression turned stony and faintly cynical again. “You’ll continue to get wet unless you come in, madam.”

“Thank you.” She could feel the blush heating her cheeks again as she stepped into the dim hall. “You’re most
kind,
I’m sure.”

He shrugged and turned away. “If you say so.”

Beastly man! He hadn’t even offered to carry their bags. Of course, most gentlemen didn’t carry the belongings of their housekeepers. But even so, it would’ve been nice to at least offer.

Helen grasped a bag in each hand. “Come, children.”

They had to walk quickly, almost jogging to keep up with Sir Alistair and what appeared to be the only light in the castle. The gigantic dog loped at his side, lean, dark, and tall, very like her master. They passed out of a great hall into a dim passage. The candlelight bobbed ahead, casting weird shadows on grimy walls and high, cobwebbed ceilings. Jamie and Abigail trailed on either side of her. Jamie was so tired that he merely trudged along, but Abigail was looking avidly from side to side as she hurried.

“It’s terribly dirty, isn’t it?” Abigail whispered.

Sir Alistair turned as she spoke, and at first Helen thought he’d heard. “Have you eaten?”

Helen nearly trod on his toes, he’d halted so suddenly. As it was, she ended up standing much too close to him. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eye, and he held the candle near his ches»e n sot, casting the light diabolically up his face.

“We had tea at the inn, but—” she began breathlessly.

“Good,” he said, and turned away. He called back over his shoulder as he disappeared around a corner, “You can stay the night in one of the guest rooms. I’ll hire a carriage to send you back to London in the morning.”

Helen gripped the bags higher and hurried to catch up. “But, I really don’t—”

He’d already started up a narrow stone stair. “You needn’t worry about the expense.”

For a second, Helen paused at the bottom of the stair, glaring at the firm backside steadily receding. Unfortunately, the light was receding as well.

“Hurry, Mama,” Abigail urged her. She’d taken her brother’s hand like a good older sister and had already mounted the steps with Jamie.

The horrid man turned at a landing up the stairs. “Coming, Mrs. Halifax?”

“Yes, Sir Alistair,” Helen said through gritted teeth. “I just think that if you’ll only try Lady Vale’s idea of having a—”

“I don’t want a housekeeper,” he rasped, and turned to the stairs again.

“I find that hard to believe,” Helen panted behind him, “considering the state of the castle I’ve seen so far.”

“And yet, I enjoy my home the way it is.”

Helen narrowed her eyes. She refused to believe anyone, even this beast of a man, actually
enjoyed
dirt. “Lady Vale specifically instructed me—”

“Lady Vale is mistaken in her belief that I desire a housekeeper.”

They’d reached the top of the stairs—finally!—and he paused to open a narrow door. He entered the room and lit a candle.

Helen stopped and watched him from the hall. When he came back out, she met his gaze determinedly. “You may not
want
a housekeeper, but it is patently obvious that you
need
a housekeeper.”

That corner of his mouth quirked again. “You may argue all you wish, madam, but the fact remains that I neither need nor wish to have you here.”

He gestured to the room with one hand. The children ran in ahead. He hadn’t bothered moving from the doorway, so Helen was forced to sidle in sideways, her bosom nearly brushing his chest.

She looked up at him as she passed. “I warn you, I shall make it my purpose to change your mind, Sir Alistair.”

He inclined his head, his one good eye glittering in the light of the candle. “Good night, Mrs. Halifax.”

And then he shut the door gently behind him.

The hero of my book TO SEDUCE A SINNER (on sale now) Jasper Renshaw, Viscount Vale, had quite a rocky road on his way to the altar. In fact, TO SEDUCE A SINNER opens with Vale being rejected by his fiancée—the
second
fiancée he’s had in six months. Thus, it should be no surprise that once married Vale endeavored to pass on some of his marital wisdom to other gentlemen. I’ll reprint his advice below.

Yours Very Sincerely,

www.elizabethhoyt.com

Sean Harlan, the hero of my latest book TOO FAR GONE (on sale now) is a killer. Surprised? I thought you might be. How could such a charmingÃsuc>

Oddly enough, this all began with one of my kids. I wanted to create a hero with the same relaxed and irrepressible charm as my son. So Sean was born. But I did a little research into that “relaxed” personality type and learned something that blew me away: it’s the one and only personality type that makes up a natural born killer! Did you know that in battles, only 15 to 25 percent of infantrymen ever fire their weapons? And most fire over the heads of the enemy! Those who actually shoot to kill comprise less than 4 percent of those in battle yet they do half the killing!

When I discovered this, I knew exactly who Sean was, dark side and all. He was a man that was indispensable to the military. After all, without men like Sean, armies would crumble and decisive battles would be lost. But I wanted Sean to be indispensable to a woman who needed him, too; so, I created Ellie Stuart as the perfect foil. As hesitant as she is about Sean’s killer instinct, she soon realizes that without Sean, she stands little chance of reclaiming her kidnapped sons. She also comes to see that her mother’s instinct makes killing a viable option and that she and Sean are not so different after all.

It is my hope that you’ll love Sean as much as I do. Oh, and by the way, my son is a perfectly nice young man . . . so far.

To learn more about Sean and Ellie’s personalities, visit the FUN STUFF page at www.marlissmelton.com.

Thanks for reading,

Most often, when you write a book, people ask you why you chose that particular setting. All I can say about northern Idaho, the setting for my latest book, WISH YOU WERE HERE (on sale now), is that I drove through it once while moving with my family from Anchorage, Alaska to Syracuse, New York, and I was absolutely entranced. Given the hard-nosed business woman Freya was, I figured there would be no greater fish-out-of-water situation for her than being stuck in the middle of all those trees.

One of the challenges of Freya’s story was where I’d left her at the end of CRAZY IN LOVE—on a road toward something of a mental breakdown. Like her sister Flynn, I felt it was high time for Freya’s life to buck her off like a mechanical dive bar bronco; and so, it was with great relish that I saddled her with a rare “condition” and placed her in an impossible situation. While I was writing CRAZY IN LOVE, Freya was one of those magical secondary characters who just begged for her own book, and it was so much fun to spend this time with her and watch her grow into her own person.

As for Nate, he was a lot of fun to write as well. Where Freya was hardened and tough, Nate was open, sensitive, and honorable. His relationship with Piper was especially fun for me to write, especially against the backdrop of Freya’s relationship with her own father. Nate’s a classic cleft-chin hero, but there was a lot of depth under those still waters, which made him a pleasure to write.

I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I did writing it. Thanks so much!

www.lanidianerich.com